Mid-19th century Belgium was hospitable to many French political refugees. They found a friend in journalist Felix Delhasse, a citizen of Spa, who hosted many of them in the thermal city. Proudhon, a refugee from the French justice system in Brussels, was also present in Spa. While he appreciated the forest, the city of Spa represented for him a kind of hell where the rich spent the money “which does not belong to them”, an idea found also in his principal work, What is Property? Proudhon’s mutualism did not advocate the abolition of property, instead he wanted to abolish the privilege that he believed property grants to its owners. Spa was the setting for a strong movement towards democracy and human rights. Documents from the Congress of Polleur relate to the creation of a Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen in 1789, including the right to property.
Vermeir & Heiremans (Author)